where the words come from

Why do I write? How do I write? What nourishes and inspires me? What sustains me and where does it take me? And what does all this have to do with my career, my studies, my professional and life experience?

The small task of writing a text about me for my new website throws me into unexpected difficulties. Seeing oneself is always difficult. As a writer, writing about oneself carries a double risk of distortion, of déformation professionnelle. One who writes, who is constantly in the process of transforming thoughts into words into writing into text. 

Writing has an inside and an outside. Daniel chooses a font, I choose the words that should appear in black and white. On paper, on a screen. But where do they come from?

Dominika Hirschler (1972*) is a singer and author born in Germany. In her essays, poems, and stories, she explores how it is possible to be both genuine and transparent in life and in art. Always with her: her camera. The photos, visual notes from her everyday life, are often the starting point for deeper reflections. In her essays, she is associative and thoughtful, but also political and ironic. In her poetry, she moves from the unknown to another form of consciousness.

The Hawaiians call it Po.

Po is origin. 
Po is source. 
Po is darkness. 
Po is the cosmic night.

Po is the ocean of the unconscious, the unknown, on which I navigate with my little sloop, my little mind, and the hand that guides the pen or types, fishing for pearls. It is an osmotic process. We exchange ideas, the world and I. My self is exchanged. I am exchanged, I absorb, I give, I transform, I am transformed. 

The text about me still has to be written. Better by someone else? I drew my Hawaiian inspiration from a video that I would like to recommend to everyone here:

Hawai‘i: Yo-Yo Ma and the Whales

You can also hear Snowbird Bento, a Hawaiian singer and dancer who connects with her ancestors and the entire cosmos through her singing.

In the end, it is not entirely clear—did the whales hear Yo-Yo Ma and his Cello? Did they respond to him? Did they understand him?

We try to sing our song. To hear ourselves, to express ourselves, and to communicate with others. I am sure whales have a sense of poetry.

Poetry is a space of possibilities. 
Poetry is going for a walk with the sisters Inspiration and Intuition. Listening to them, obeying their commands. Uncovering something that was not visible or legible before. An adventure, unpredictable, sometimes dangerous. I discover myself and I don’t always like what I see, write, or understand. It takes courage to be as brave as the text and not shrink back. 

Poetry is my comfort. 
Poetry is a place where I can love in a way that I may not be able to in life. Where beauty touches and transforms everything that pains and disturbs me. 

Poetry is the place where a secret meaning is to be found. She reveals herself and must not be understood.